USJE National President Stan Stapleton and National Vice-President David Neufeld, have been in regular communication with Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) Commissioner Anne Kelly, and federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair’s office, regarding Ms. Kelly’s direction to Parole Officers to complete Administrative Reviews for certain Schedule I offenders.
Yesterday, Commissioner Kelly granted the extension that USJE sought on behalf of our members. This means the Administrative Reviews for relevant Schedule I offenders now need to be completed by May 28th, 2021.
USJE also insisted that CSC National Headquarters clearly signal to all regions that pre-approved overtime be made available to Parole Officers if it is required to complete these reviews. In Ms. Kelly’s response to the Union, she noted: “With respect to overtime, as per their collective agreement, where staff have concerns with timeframes in completing this work, they should discuss their concerns with their manager for potential options and solutions.”
USJE strongly encourages all members who must work outside of their regular hours to complete their duties (including these Administrative Reviews) to approach their supervisors in order to request overtime.
USJE is continuing communication with the Commissioner and Minister Blair’s office to advocate for the other solutions that were outlined in our March 13th letter to the Commissioner.
These include:
- Ensuring a dedicated staff person or information retrieval teams be appropriately resourced to complete these reviews within each institution, CCC and Community Parole Office and that
- USJE be directly and meaningfully consulted in order to safely implement the BOI recommendations.
In addition, USJE has intensified our efforts with the Commissioner to discuss the many important issues that were highlighted in the 2019 USJE Report, Protecting Public Safety: The Challenges Facing Federal Parole Officers in Canada’s Highly Stressed Criminal Justice System
USJE looks forward to keeping our members apprised of all future progress on this file and on all other files which we are fighting for on behalf of our members. For the moment, USJE wanted to ensure that all members know about the extension and the importance of requesting overtime when it is required.